There was a time when Bluetooth speakers were like jelly beans: They were cheap, they all looked the same, and they were invariably of dubious quality. Times have changed. Every major audio manufacturer has at least one model on the market today, and most have several. If you haven’t listened to a Bluetooth speaker lately, you’re in for a very pleasant surprise.

The industry’s progress doesn’t mean that every Bluetooth speaker justifies its price tag, no matter how inexpensive it might be. There’s still plenty of dreck floating around. Don’t worry, we’re here to help you steer clear of the junk and point you to the best speakers at the price range that fits your budget.

A great wireless router is an essential element of tech life, whether you’re building out a smart home or you just want the best experience streaming music and video at home. If you’re suffering with low wireless throughput or dead spots in any area of your home, we heartily recommend deploying a mesh network consisting of a Wi-Fi router with one or more satellite nodes that you sprinkle around your home, because it will blanket your home with coverage.

You can deploy a mesh Wi-Fi router without any satellites, but you’d be losing out on all the coverage benefits that mesh technology provides. We pick the best mesh systems here, because even those of us fortunate enough to have ethernet drops everywhere have devices—smartphones and tablets, for instance—that depend on Wi-Fi to connect to the home network and the internet.

So you plopped down a pile of cash to buy a 4K TV, maybe even one that delivers high dynamic range. Awesome. Once you’ve wowed your friends and family with those lush demo files the manufacturer provided, you’re going to want to splash some 4K movies across that screen. A 4K Ultra HD Blu-ray player is just the ticket.

Most players also stream 4K HDR video from a handful of video-streaming services—including Netflix, Amazon Video, and Vudu—if you have the bandwidth, that is. If your ISP can’t deliver super-fast download speeds, you won’t be able to stream 4K.

And then there’s the audio side of the equation. Nearly every Blu-ray disc contains a high-definition soundtrack encoded in Dolby TrueHD or DTS HD Master Audio. Some will also contain Dolby Atmos and DTS:X data that expand surround sound to include height information. (We have an in-depth story about Dolby Atmos and DTS:X here).

A great wireless router is an essential element of tech life, whether you’re building out a smart home or you just want the best experience streaming music and video at home. We pick the best models here, because even those of us fortunate enough to have ethernet drops in every room have devices—smartphones and tablets, for instance—that depend on Wi-Fi to connect to the home network if not the internet.

Wi-Fi router cheat sheet

Our quick-hit picks:

Best Wi-Fi system: Netgear Orbi RBK50

Best budget Wi-Fi system: TP-Link Deco M5

Best Wi-Fi router for smart homes: Samsung Connect Home

Twin and sometimes conflicting demands for high performance and ease of use are powering a thriving and rapidly evolving market. Innovation is one of the biggest upsides of this dynamic, and confusion its biggest downside. Today’s hero could be tomorrow’s has-been, as established brands like Linksys and Netgear try to one-up each other while simultaneously fending off new challengers such as Eero and Luma. But it’s those challengers who have innovated the most, starting with Eero, the first manufacturer to bring mesh networking to the consumer router market.

TP-Link makes a strong entry into the whole-home Wi-Fi game with its Deco M5. This router performs very well and has one uncommon feature: integrated antivirus/antimalware (from Trend Micro) that can protect all the devices on your network. But if you want one, you’ll need to pay for a $300 three-pack, as that’s the only way it’s available right now.

TP-Link tells me that single units will eventually be available for $129 each, which is good news for folks living in smaller spaces. A single Deco M5 might be all you really need for a studio apartment. It’s not faster than pricier routers from Linksys and Netgear, but it is a very good value overall.

What’s cooler than turning on your lights with your smartphone? Turning on your lights hands free, using just your voice. Smart lighting control is one of the best features that Alexa, Amazon’s cloud-based digital assistant, has to offer. Fortunately, the barrier to entry into the home of the future is extremely low. We’ll show you everything you need to be able to do enjoy this wonderful convenience.

First up, you’ll need an Alexa-compatible device. Amazon offers several: The Echo Dot is the least expensive at just $50, and it’s the one we recommend for most people. You can also summon Alexa from some Amazon Fire TV devices, including the 4K Amazon Fire TV. Amazon also allows third-party manufacturers to tap into its Alexa Voice Service with their own devices (such products were all over the CES show floor earlier this year).

When I reviewed the Amazon Echo 13 months ago, I predicted that people would want one in every room. The Echo can control your home’s lighting, play music, estimate your commute time, operate a timer, answer trivia questions, read books and news bulletins to you, tell you which movies are at your local theater, and so much more. You can order a pizza from Dominoes, a ride from Uber, or virtually anything from Amazon. You’d want one in every room so you didn’t need to walk to the room it was in to use it, or yell “Alexa!” from across the house to get its attention. I’m sure Amazon loved my idea, but it was never going to happen on a broad scale at $180 a pop.

Reading is one of life’s finer pleasures, especially while tippling your favorite beverage. E-readers make this pastime supremely convenient. If you’ve decided to choose from Amazon’s lineup, we’ll help you pick the right one for your needs (or for that special someone on your holiday shopping list).

There will be times when you’ll miss the tactile feedback that only a product crafted from ink and dead trees can provide, but the benefits of e-readers are almost too numerous to count: You can read one in the dark. You can change the font and its size. There’s no need to go to the store to buy something new to read (or to wait for it to be delivered). You can get definitions of words you’re not familiar with. The list goes on and on.

Smart home technology has yet to rise to the level of sophistication depicted in the Jetsons, but it’s getting closer every day. And the hardware needed to reach that goal is becoming more affordable every day, too. We’ve selected a broad range of solutions for this gift guide that will make life at home easier, more secure, and—most importantly—more fun.

Logitech Harmony Elite

You name it and Logitech’s Harmony Elite universal remote can control it, everything from your home theater to your thermostat.

Comcast announced earlier this year that it was adding support for the Nest Learning Thermostat, August Smart Lock, Chamberlain MyQ garage-door controller, and the Lutron Caseta wireless lighting controller so that subscribers could manage those devices from the Xfinity Home app. Today, Comcast activated that support.

Customers can buy these devices on their own, and they can install them themselves. Many other connected-home and home-security service providers require the consumer to purchase the products from them and to pay for installation. Comcast does require, however, that one of its technicians install any new hardware that could trigger the alarm system. As with similar services from Vivint, ADT, Frontpoint, and other service providers, Comcast provides 24/7 central monitoring and will notify the appropriate emergency responders in the event of a break-in, fire, or medical emergency.

E-commerce giant Amazon will not only not sell the Apple TV and Google Chromecast, but it has banned its marketplace sellers from offering those devices for sale, too

As first reported in this Bloomberg story, Amazon sent its marketplace partners an email justifying the ban because it claims those devices don’t do a good job of supporting Amazon’s Prime Video streaming service, and that the company is concerned its Prime customers will become confused as to why its services don’t work well on those devices.

Amazon took the wraps off no fewer than seven products today: two new media streamers, four new tablets, and a new tablet operating system, Fire OS 5.

The all-new Fire TV is of particular interest: It’s one of the few media streamers capable of delivering 4K resolution, and it costs just $100. Amazon’s least-expensive tablet will also turn heads: A 7-inch model with an IPS display that will be priced at just $50.

Amazon Fire TV and Fire TV Stick

The new Fire TV’s 4K resolution is one of its most exciting features, but I think its support for Amazon’s cloud-based voice service, Alexa, is equally as important. As I said in my review of the Echo, anyone who buys an Echo will want to buy more for other rooms of their home. Put a Fire TV in your home theater, and that’s one room you won’t need to add an Echo to.

Just when you thought the announcements from Google HQ couldn’t get any weirder (Alphabet, anyone?), Google product manager Trond Wuellner takes to the Google Blog to announce the company’s entry into the Wi-Fi router market with the OnHub.

But the OnHub isn’t just any router. For starters, it supports the ZigBee connected-home protocol, aka IEEE 802.15.4, and the Weave programming language developed by Google’s Nest Labs for Internet of Things applications. The OnHub also supports Bluetooth 4.0, including Bluetooth Smart Ready.

Ethernet cable (either CAT5e or CAT6) is the gold standard of home-networking technology. If you can string cable from your router to everywhere you need Internet access, do it. You'll get out-of-this-world speed and impeccable reliability.

That’s easier said than done, of course, which is why there are alternatives. Wi-Fi is the easiest to deploy, but its range can be limited and you might have areas that wireless signals can’t reach at all. That leaves you with two other courses of action, both of which piggyback on your home’s existing wiring: Powerline network adapters (which use electrical wiring) and MoCA network adapters (Multimedia over Coax, which use the same cable as your TV). So which is the better alternative?

The Archt One (it's pronounced “arc”) is something of an anomaly, and not just because this self-powered speaker is shaped like an artillery shell crowned with one of Saturn’s rings. The Archt One is the result of a Kickstarter campaign that kicked off in October 2014, blew past its $70,000 goal (having raised $242,000 by its conclusion in December), and shipped to backers on time in March 2015. The speaker went into mass production early last month, and the manufacturer sent us one for this review.

The Archt One can play music from an Android or other device via Bluetooth, from an iOS device or Mac via AirPlay, or from any DLNA-compatible device on your Wi-Fi network. Finally, you can also connect any analog source to its 1/8-inch aux input. The speaker has a USB port for charging portable devices, too. I auditioned it using an HTC One smartphone with Bluetooth first, and then with and an iPod touch via AirPlay. I found sound quality to be superior with the latter, but connectivity more reliable with the former. I’ll go into more detail on its audio performance later.